Reviews

“The contributions to this volume cover a great diversity of topics from multiple perspectives. It constitutes a welcome addition to the literature on the Upper Guinea Coast, particularly by taking an anthropological approach to a region that has for the most part been studied historically.” · Philip Jan Havik, Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical, Portugal

“This collection’s list of contributors and interdisciplinary scope are impressive. Gathered here are chapters from historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and political scientists, all of which mesh together well in a volume that will attract the attention of regional specialists and scholars interested in the continent more broadly.” · Walter Hawthorne, Michigan State University

Description

For centuries, Africa’s Upper Guinea Coast region has been the site of regional and global interactions, with societies from different parts of the African continent and beyond engaging in economic trade, cultural exchange, and various forms of conflict. This book provides a wide-ranging look at how such encounters have continued into the present day, identifying the disruptions and continuities in religion, language, economics, and various other social phenomena that have resulted. These accounts show a region that, while still grappling with the legacies of colonialism and the slave trade, is both shaped by and an important actor within ever-denser global networks, exhibiting consistent transformation and creative adaptation.

Jacqueline Knörr is Head of Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology and Extraordinary Professor at the Martin Luther University in Halle/Saale, Germany. She was brought up in Ghana and Germany and conducted extensive field research in Indonesia, West Africa and Central Europe. She has worked as Senior Lecturer, Senior Researcher, University Professor, Scientific Director, Consultant and Political Advisor. Her research and publications focus on the political anthropology of postcolonial societies, decolonization, nationalism, identity politics, ethno-linguistics, gender, and childhood.

Christoph Kohl is a research fellow in the research group ‘The Cultural Dynamics of Political Globalisation’ at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), Germany. He was a doctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (Saale), and received his Ph.D. from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in 2010.

BISAC:SOC053000 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Regional Studies;SOC015000 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Human Geography;SOC002000 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/General

BIC:RGC Human geography;JHM Anthropology

The Upper Guinea Coast in Global PerspectiveEdited by Jacqueline Knörr and Christoph Kohl is
available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). with support from Knowledge Unlatched.